Free Republic

A South Carolina inmate who has spent 21 years on death row has chosen a firing squad for his April 29 execution. If the execution happens it will be South Carolina's first since 2011. Richard Moore, 57, chose a firing squad over the electric chair. "I believe this election is forcing me to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and I do not intend to waive any challenges to electrocution or firing squad by making an election," Moore said. Moore's lawyers continue to challenge the constitutionality of both types of execution. They are challenging the execution in both state...

This date marks half a century since the hanging of Victor Feguer — the last man executed by the federal government in the 20th century. (And the last executed in the state of Iowa, period.) A drifter holing up at a Dubuque, Iowa, boarding house, Feguer phoned up a random doctor claiming a woman needed medical attention. Think about that the next time someone gets nostalgic for house calls. Dr. Edward Bartels showed up only to be kidnapped by Feguer, and eventually murdered in Illinois. Feguer was picked up in Alabama, trying to sell the doctor’s stolen car; his motive...

Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history. The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam's holiest site. It wasn't clear why the kingdom choose Saturday for the executions, though they came as much of the world's attention remained focused on Russia's war on Ukraine —...

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said that Donald Trump was 'right on target' to suggest Hillary Clinton's operatives should be executed after the former president accused her campaign of treason. [cut] Jordan added that the 'spying' was 'worse than [we] thought.'

State officials on Thursday said its unlikely that prosecutors will be able to obtain a warrant to carry out death row inmate Zane Floyd’s execution before Nevada’s supply of one of the lethal injection drugs expires. “It’s theoretically possible but highly unlikely,” Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Alexander Chen said during a hearing in U.S. District Court. Floyd, who was sentenced to die for fatally shooting four people and gravely wounding another at a Las Vegas grocery store more than two decades ago, has multiple appeals in front of the Nevada Supreme Court. The high court would have to...

By | LIKE A push to repeal the death penalty in Utah, once a bedrock of conservative support for capital punishment, has garnered unlikely bipartisan support. Utah Rep. Lowry Snow, a Republican, voted twice against bids to repeal the death penalty in Utah in the past. Now, he’s the chief sponsor of HB 147, which seeks to prohibit the state from seeking the death penalty for aggravated murder committed after May 4, 2022. Instead, the current draft of the bill includes a possible sentence of 45 years-to-life for aggravated murder. He’s partnered with Sharon Wright Weeks, who started as a...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state's three-drug lethal injection, one of their attorneys told a federal judge on Monday. The two inmates — Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle — want U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot to grant them a temporary injunction that would delay their upcoming executions until a trial can be held over whether Oklahoma's three-drug lethal injection method is constitutional. A trial is set to begin before Friot on Feb. 28, but Grant is scheduled to be put to...

The New Zealand government has announced that patients admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 can be killed via euthanasia, according to Scoop. In November, anti-euthanasia group #DefendNZ asked the New Zealand Ministry of Health (MOH) questions about the practice of the nation’s End of Life Choice Act (EOLC Act). One of these questions was, “Could a patient who is severely hospitalised with Covid-19 potentially be eligible for assisted suicide or euthanasia under the Act if a health practitioner viewed their prognosis as less than 6 months?” The EOLC Act states that a person who has a “terminal illness that is...

After a five-year moratorium, the state of Oklahoma botched its third consecutive execution on Thursday when convict John Marion Grant died after convulsing and vomiting all over himself following a lethal injection, according to witnesses. Grant, 60, was convicted of murdering prison guard Gay Carter on Friday the 13th in November of 1998 after he stabbed her 16 times with a shank knife while he was serving sentences for robbery and illegal firearm charges. Almost immediately after he was injected, Grant experienced two dozen full body convulsions and began vomiting all over himself, according to Associated Press reporter Sean Murphy,...

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma ended a six-year moratorium on executions Thursday, administering the death penalty on a man who convulsed and vomited as he was executed for the 1998 slaying of a prison cafeteria worker. John Marion Grant, 60, who was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber, began convulsing and vomiting after the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was administered. Several minutes later, two members of the execution team wiped the vomit from his face and neck. He was serving a 130-year prison sentence for several armed robberies when witnesses say he dragged prison cafeteria worker Gay...

This is the moment an Afghan comedian continued mocking the Taliban as fighters from the insurgent group dragged him away from his home before later executing him by firing squad. In a viral video filmed at the end of July, Nazar Mohammad, better known as Khasha Zwan, can be seen in the back of a car with an insurgent on either side of him - one of them brandishing a Kalashnikov machine gun. The brave comic - known for his TikTok videos - continues making jokes about the group, causing the Taliban fighter to his right to begin slapping him...

As the leading executioner per capita in the world, it is perhaps appropriate that a notorious killer, known as ‘The Butcher of Tehran,’ has ascended to the presidency. Following his rigged election, Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated as president on August 5th. Listed as an international terrorist in the USA, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for his indictment for violations of human rights and crimes against humanity. He has boasted of his role as a member of the ‘Death Commission’ appointed by the then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988, which oversaw the massacre of more than 30,000...

CNN’s Anna Coren reports from Kabul, Afghanistan, with new evidence of atrocities committed by the Taliban. Video has emerged of Afghan commandos being shot dead after an apparent surrender. The Taliban rejects the video, saying it is fabricated.

HORRIFIC VIDEO: Puerto Rican Couple Yanked From Their Car and Shot By Mob of Black Men in Chicago A man was killed, and a woman was critically injured in a shooting Saturday night in Humboldt Park. There has been crickets in the media about this possible hate crime. The shooting took place as people were leaving Chicago’s 43rd Annual Puerto Rican People’s Day Parade, which people from all over the country and Puerto Rico travel to the city to attend. The victims had a large Puerto Rican flag waving from their car when they were approached by a mob of...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) – The U.S. District Court of South Carolina denied Friday an injunction filed by two death row inmates scheduled for execution starting next week. Death row inmates Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens asked the court to find the electric chair to be declared cruel and unusual punishment violating the 8th amendment to the U.S. constitution. The case stems from Governor McMaster adding firing squad to the state’s execution methods except the firing squad is yet to be created and lethal injection is arguably unavailable. So Sigmon and Owens are set to die by the only...

Texas on Wednesday carried out its first execution after a 10-month hiatus with the lethal injection of a man convicted of killing an 83-year-old relative over $30. State corrections officials pronounced Quintin Jones, 41, dead at 6:40 p.m. at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, The Texas Tribune reported. He was convicted 20 years ago of the 1999 murder of his great-aunt, Berthena Bryant. The lethal injection came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined a petition by Jones' lawyers seeking a stay of execution. The court documents said the state unconstitutionally denied his intellectual disability claim and used now-discredited...

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill into law over the weekend that would require death row inmates to choose their execution method if lethal injections are not available in the state.The measure will allow the state to restart executions after nearly a decade-long pause, adding firing squads as an alternative method. A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed the bill forward earlier this year and voted 32–11 in favor on March 2.According to the new law, death row inmates will have to choose between the electric chair or the newly formed firing squad. The state Senate bill will keep...

Death by firing squad is poised to become an execution method in South Carolina as the state faces a lack of lethal-injection drugs. The state House passed a bill Wednesday, 66-43, approving the use of firing squads, two months after the state Senate approved the measure, 32-11. Condemned inmates will be able to choose between electrocution or firing squad if lethal injection drugs are unavailable. South Carolina can’t put anyone to death now because its supply of lethal-injection drugs expired and it has not been able to buy any more. Currently, inmates can choose between the electric chair and lethal...

ATLANTA — He has been one of the most vocal, visible and controversial critics of the integrity of Georgia’s election. Attorney Lin Wood filed lawsuits and held rallies, claiming people voted illegally in the 2020 presidential election. Now Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray has learned that the state has launched an investigation into whether Wood himself was a legal Georgia voter. Gray confirmed Tuesday that the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has launched an investigation into whether Wood was eligible to vote in Georgia, whether he broke the law by casting his ballot and whether he was actually a...

Lai Xiaomin, former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co., the country’s largest such firm, was executed by a court in Tianjin city on Jan. 29. The firm was founded in Beijing on Nov. 8, 1999. Since September 2012, Lai also served as the company’s Chinese Communist Party chief. Lai was first placed under investigation by China’s anti-corruption watchdog in April 2018. On Jan. 5, 2021, he was sentenced to death without reprieve by the Tianjin intermediate court, on charges of bribery, embezzlement, and bigamy. The court noted that most of the activity in question took place after the 18th...